What is cholesterol and is it all bad? The differences between high cholesterol, healthy cholesterol levels and the steps for naturally lowering cholesterol can get confusing.

For example, high cholesterol puts you at risk for heart disease and a heart attack. But there’s both “good” and “bad” cholesterol and a high cholesterol level could also be a positive sign.

Understand cholesterol and knowing how to naturally manage it is very important.

What is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a soft, waxy material found in the cells and bloodstream along with lipids (fats).

The confusion begins with the fact that cholesterol performs many vital and important functions in a healthy body. This includes making cell membranes and manufacturing essential hormones. However, too much of a “good” thing can turn out to be a “bad” thing.

Fat and blood, like oil and water, don’t mix. Consequently, to prevent clogging arteries and keep essential fats moving through the blood to the cells, tiny protein covered fat globules called lipoproteins are formed. For stability, these lipoproteins contain a small amount of cholesterol.

Of the several different kinds of lipoproteins, here are the most important to understand:

• Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) is “bad” cholesterol. It’s name means that LDL contains more fat than protein and is less dense.

• High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) is “good” cholesterol. HDL has less fat and more protein and is a heavier, denser molecule.

If you have too much LDL flowing through your blood, you have a greater risk of atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. Clogging of the arteries leading to the heart can cause a heart attack. And clogging of the arteries that lead to the brain can cause a stroke.

So a greater amount of LDL in the blood means a greater risk of both heart attack and stroke.

How Does Cholesterol Work?

HDL works like a roto-rooter. It scrubs cholesterol off artery walls and moves it out through the liver. High levels of HDL in the blood means better protection against heart attack and stroke.

And since too little HDL can increase your risk of heart disease, it’s also best to have LDL/HDL ratios of 3 to 1 or less. An HDL count lower than 40 mg/dl is considered to be a risk factor. This is particularly true for women, since women normally have higher HDL counts than men.

An HDL count over 60 mg/dl is known to be protective against heart disease.

Triglycerides are also a very important part of your blood lipid profile. Even though triglycerides are the most common fats found in the bloodstream, a high triglyceride count over 150 mg/dl is considered to be another risk factor for heart disease .

Self administered tests, available from pharmacies and on the internet, can give you some indication of your total cholesterol count, but they’re neither complete nor always accurate. They don’t, for example, show a breakdown of the LDL/HDL ratio or a triglyceride count.

Lifestyle and Diet for Lowering Cholesterol

Naturally lowering high cholesterol is not difficult for most people. Begin by gradually and persistently making the following basic lifestyle and dietary changes:

• Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. Exercise works better than any drug available, without side effects. It lowers overall cholesterol, increases HDL and reduces LDL.

• Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Colorful antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables have been shown to help lower cholesterol and protect against heart disease.

• Greatly increase your high fiber foods. Besides fruits and vegetables, increase your intake of other fiber food, such as whole grains and beans.

• Eat more good fat and reduce bad fats. Saturated animal fat, such as full fat dairy and red meat, raise cholesterol. Stick with olive oil and omega 3 fish for your main sources of fats.

• Include heart healthy supplements. Omega 3 fish oil can not only improve cholesterol, it also helps to lower blood pressure and reduce your overall risk of heart disease and stroke.

My daughter needed a sheet set for her new full size bed, so off we went to one of those linen stores where aisles full of sheets in all sorts of fibers quickly had us totally confused. She’s ten, so the main thing she cared about was getting the color she wanted in her bedding - something that would match her new Pink Webkinz frog. I’m a little older and wiser, so I was concerned with getting sheets that didn’t contain toxic chemicals.

I was delighted to find some very pretty pink Modal sheets with a tag that assured us that they were made from beech trees from sustainable tree farms where no pesticides or toxic chemicals were used. They were wonderfully soft and silky and my daughter fell in love with them, so we took them home, washed them and put them on her bed.

I was so happy with our purchase that I told a friend about it and she asked me if I’d looked up Modal fiber on the net or done any research on it. I was ashamed to admit that I hadn’t. (Sheesh! I do research for a living.) I was even more ashamed to admit that I’d trusted a tag on a sheet, rather than doing my own investigating.

So I looked up Modal and found that it isn’t quite as innocent and natural as the tag implies. Yes, the beech trees are raised without pesticides or other synthetic chemicals if the Modal comes from the EU. (Ours did.) But the manufacturing process includes using caustic chemicals to break down the fibers, similar to the way rayon, another “natural” but not organic fiber, is made. True, there were probably no residues in the sheets, but there was also no assurance that they hadn’t been dyed with harsh, synthetic dyes either.

Some Modal is dyed with non-toxic dye and some isn’t. As a skeptic, I tend to think that if it doesn’t say non-toxic dyes, it probably was dyed with synthetic ones. Unfortunately, our sheets didn’t say they’d been dyed with non-toxic dyes, so I’m just hoping that whatever dyes they used don’t leach out of it over time. Obviously, I have some more investigating to do, although the sheets are on the bed. They were very expensive and I’m convinced that they have to be healthier than non-organic cotton or polyester.

All this research led me to wonder about other so-called natural fibers like bamboo, hemp and Tencel, which is made by the same company that makes Modal. From what I can glean from the Net, unless the garment is certified organic, there’s no guarantee that it’s any more natural than any other fiber that is produced through a chemical process that uses chemicals - usually caustic chemicals - to break down the fiber into a pulp that is then spun into threads. The company that makes both Modal and Tencel touts its award-winning manufacturing process which - in the case of Tencel - recovers 99.5% of the solvent, but then where does the other .5 percent go? Into the fibers?

I understand that there are two types of bamboo fabric and fibers - one that is made from whole bamboo that is spun into fibers and one that is processed into pulp first. The former is considered more natural than the latter. Tencel is reputed to be made with fewer chemicals than Modal, but still uses a solvent in the pulping process. Hemp, cotton and bamboo are only really “natural” when they’re certified organic and untreated with formaldehyde or flame retardant or any other VOC.

It’s a case of “caveat emptor” but when hasn’t the buyer had to beware of misleading claims. All I know is that I’m going to be much more careful from now on when I’m choosing fabrics for clothes or bedding. If it’s not organic, I’ll assume that it has something in it that I don’t want next to my skin or on my family’s beds. Hmm, sounds like I’m going to be waiting for sales to be able to afford any future natural fibers, because organic garments and bedding are really pricey, and now I have a better idea of why they cost so much.